When I step out of the bathroom, Titus is already dressed and I look at him for a long time before he asks, “What?”
He looks down at himself and then at me.
I can’t keep the derision out of my voice, “Aren’t you going to shower?”
Titus chuckles while standing up slowly before tucking his phone into his back pocket and stalking in my direction. I freeze. Because in this moment, I’m the prey and he is most definitely the predator.
I’ve never wanted to be caught more.
“I was able to clean up enough to get dressed,” he steps right up to me and leans down, his nose slides up my bare neck.
Throwing my hair up into a messy bun that rivals a bird’s nest was the only option because all I want to do is go and collect my things. I probably should wonder why I’m not more insistent on going home and staying there, but I don’t.
That sounds like a problem for future me.
“But I have to be honest,” his words ghost over my skin and I swallow hard, “the thought of being covered in your scent is really doing things to me, Teach.”
The moan that comes out of me is totally involuntary and completely out of my control. It’s answered by a dark chuckle which whispers along my skin.
“I’m really not sure if I should be disgusted or strutting around here like I just won a beauty pageant,” I breathlessly admit, embarrassingly so, which I find I don’t really care about.
This time his chuckle is less sin and more real humor. I think I like that sound even more. Toss up, but I’m going with it.
“Definitely beauty pageant.” He kisses right under my earlobe and I shiver. “Now I’ll be thinking about you in a bathing suit all night. What would your talent be, Ezra?”
I giggle before gently pushing him away. While wiggling my eyebrows, I tease, “Not something that can be aired on national television.”
I’m rewarded with that sound again—his amused chuckle. The real one. Warmth fills my chest and I find myself leaning toward the sound.
With a slap to my ass, my surprised sound of annoyance follows him into the bathroom. I find myself blushing as I look around. When I step up to his cut, hanging on a hook near the door, the last part of what Titus slides on to step into his role to lead this club, something like sadness washes over me.
Not because he doesn’t wear it well.
Not because I’m afraid of what it means.
But because it must have been lonely at times. That is a feeling I understand.
The door behind me opens, but I don’t look at him. I can feel him watching me, watching the way my fingertips slide along the edge of the leather. Almost on his shoulders. Almost armor.
“Is it lonely?” I don’t look at him as I ask the question.
“Sometimes,” he admits, but it doesn’t sound like it costs him anything and it has me looking at him.
Can he see that loneliness in my eyes?
“When?” I can’t help it; I look at him while he weighs the question.
And the answer.
“At night. When the clubhouse is quiet. When I’m in bed alone wondering if there could be more,” his answer rings with sincerity. His gray eyes soften and something intentional enters his voice, “But it had to be the right woman at the right time.”
Unsure what to do with those words, I lift his cut off the hook and turn toward him, holding it up and out but not for him to take. His eyes flash with surprise and then he’s staring at me with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
His approach is slow, each step weighted. I wait.
One of his large arms slides into his cut and then he turns, hooking the other arm through the hole. I slide it up his back and into place. Leather wrapped around the steel of his shoulders. The mantle back where it belongs.
The weight one man must carry.
